2014 Schedule Includes Three Games vs. NCAA Tournament Teams

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Three games vs. teams that that took part in the 2013 NCAA Tournament -- including national champion UConn -- highlight the 2014 Yale field hockey schedule, which was released Tuesday. The 17-game regular season starts Saturday, Sept. 6 vs. Sacred Heart at Johnson Field. In addition to the seven Ivy League games -- starting with a trip to archrival Harvard on Sept. 20 -- the Bulldogs have 10 non-league games. This is Yale's 10th season with Pam Stuper as Caroline Ruth Thompson '02 Head Coach of Field Hockey.

Yale returns eight players who started nine or more games and two All-Ivy League selections from last season, when the team went 8-9 overall and 4-3 in the league. Yale is 24-11 in Ivy games over the past five years, the second-best record in the league in that span.

Rising junior midfielder Nicole Wells (Bryn Mawr, Pa.) is Yale's captain. She is also the Bulldogs' top returning scorer (3-3-9), followed by rising sophomore forward Rhoni Gericke (Cape Town, South Africa) (3-2-8). Wells and rising senior goalkeeper Heather Schlesier (San Diego, Calif.) were both All-Ivy League picks last season, earning second team honors.

Here is a breakdown of the schedule for 2014, Yale's 43rd varsity season:

Yale's regular-season schedule consists of 17 games. That includes seven games against Ivy League opponents (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn and Princeton).

The NCAA tournament, which includes 19 teams, stars with three play-in games Nov. 12 and the Nov. 15-16 first- and second-round games at campus sites. The winners of those series advance to the Final Four, which takes place at Maryland's Field Hockey & Lacrosse Stadium on Nov. 21 and 23. The 19-team NCAA Tournament field includes 11 automatic qualifiers, including one for the Ivy League champion.

Yale will offer live stats of home games on yalebulldogs.com. Live stats from road games will also be available through the host schools' websites.

The schedule is subject to change. Check yalebulldogs.com for updates.